


On the convergence of two lonely girls

by GlitterIbbur



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: (im) sorry, (lena gets more than a hug), F/F, LENA GETS A HUG, Slow Burn, conflicted kara, i invented an entire bioterrorist organization for this fic someone help me, lena reconciling her xenophobia with her crush on kara/supergirl, lena with a crush on kara and discomfort around supergirl, mentions of animal/alien medical abuse in the first chapter but it's not graphic, morally gray lena, puppy!kara, soft!lena, this started as a bdsm exploration and now it has a plot, will eventually feature:
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 14:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9184837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitterIbbur/pseuds/GlitterIbbur
Summary: Lena Luthor is content in her solitude, or so she says whenever she longs for a closeness she can't quite name. On the other hand, Kara Danvers never feels more alone than when she's in a crowd; she loves fiercely in the hope she might fill the void left by the loss of her family, her culture and her planet.To Lena, Kara is sunshine incarnate who she can't help but adore in spite of herself. Her relationship with Supergirl is no less magnetic, but it's different: dark, twisting and contentious. Meanwhile, Kara struggles between honesty and safety as Lena's relationship with Kara flourishes and her relationship with Supergirl deteriorates.The dance between dominance and submission has its own unique catharsis. With Kara, Lena has someone to cherish who wants nothing more than to please and support her. With Supergirl, Lena has a confidante because the Girl of Steel with a heart of gold won't let her fall. Kara gains a lifeline in her grief and frustration through Lena, someone who asks nothing more from her than to be present. They come together, inevitable, two strong women with the power to craft the world into a place where they can thrive.





	

It had been a week. A week since Lena saved the aliens in National City from certain destruction. A week since Lena turned her mom in to the authorities, to rot who-knows-where awaiting trial. A week of exhausting days and sleepless nights. A week of being called in for questioning with at least three different law enforcement agencies. A week of constant meetings, flipping from outraged investors to demanding alien rights groups to every kind of media outlet without respite. A week without a word from either Kara or Supergirl.

Supergirl, Lena could understand. She might have saved the day, but it was pittance for a Luthor. Her motives were too cloudy, her means too questionable, her morals too gray. The lip service Supergirl had paid to Lena about how she was too smart and too good to be anything like her mother was just a front: Supergirl’s self-preservation was far more pertinent than any semblance of faith in Lena’s potential to do good. Supergirl’s support was self-serving. Her silence was nothing more than a confirmation that she had never believed in Lena in the first place, regardless of what she said about judging people by their own merit.

Kara, though. Lena hadn’t heard from Kara in the week since she had come to visit asking about her mother. Lena had scoured each new issue of CatCo Magazine for Kara’s article, but it hadn’t appeared—and neither had anything else. And Lena wasn’t naïve; Kara had secrets and connections Lena could only dream of, beyond even what her apparent friendship with Clark Kent could provide her with.

After all, Kara had come to her asking leading questions about her mother, asking in circles if Lena was aware of her mom’s involvement with Cadmus. Lena knew of the organization, of course, and knew that her mother did _something_ related to Lex’s anti-alien agenda, but she honestly had not considered her mother was capable of something so diabolical. So, when Kara had asked her about her mom, Lena told the truth and hoped her honesty was convincing enough to pass Kara’s test. She hoped she’d continue to be someone Kara trusted, someone Kara liked to be around. Kara was a bright presence in Lena’s life: kind, smart and hopeful. She was magnetic, optimistic but grounded, and charmingly rough around the edges. Lena tried not to remember how Kara’s eyes sparkled when she smiled or how warm she felt in her presence, like Kara was a sun that Lena could thaw in front of. Remembering made her absence sting so much more, prickling the skin of Lena’s face and scraping out her chest until she felt hollow.

Loneliness threatened to crush Lena, pulling her into herself until she imploded like a dying star. After a week of silence, Lena felt foolish to believe that she was anything but a professional contact for Kara. She was angry with her for making her feel like she mattered, but her anger was quickly overshadowed by her own self-loathing at being so selfish and hopeful. How stupid she was to assume goodwill towards her was anything special, any indication that she was truly worth liking as a person and not a figurehead. She was a Luthor, after all. The name might be poison but it was all she had. And her foolishness was her own; twenty-five years as a Luthor taught her that they tainted everything. As much as Lena, when she was drunk and lonely and vulnerable, ached for things she couldn’t voice sober, she knew she didn’t deserve whatever it was she wanted from Kara. She didn’t deserve anything from a sweet woman who’d clearly been nothing but loved her whole life.

The fact that Lena could ruin Kara’s perfect, happy life prevented her from calling for the whole week, though her thumb had hovered over Kara’s name in her phone multiple times. What would she say to her, anyway? Lena was under too much pressure to keep the confident veneer she adopted around her friend—god _,_ she _hoped_ they were still friends—from cracking. It was almost effortless to be lighter than she was around Kara, and Lena didn’t want to destroy that by inviting Kara into her misery.

Dawn was breaking and the city followed; Lena couldn’t hear anything from her office but she saw lights turning on in the buildings around her and cars that looked like toys file out onto the street. She hadn’t meant to spend the night, but a late meeting had turned into a draft proposal that had turned into twenty re-written emails to her board. She’d stopped being productive around one in the morning, but hadn’t wanted to go through the motions of going home to her empty condo just to toss and turn for a few hours before heading back. Lena glanced down at her schedule and wanted to scream; she had teleconferences and meetings and all anyone really wanted was to know an easily quotable, easily understood sound bite response to continue to exploit to the worst week of her life.

She sent a request to her assistant, Jess, for breakfast. A croissant and Irish butter and fresh fruit. She’d pick at it, but it was light enough she could at least try. And she’d have some tea, in the meantime, to settle her stomach and stop the incessant picking of her cuticles.

Lena glided over to the cabinet like she wasn’t in her body. Motions automatic, she tapped open the door and pulled out the kettle, her glass mug with a filter, a jar of light honey and a dark wooden box. She set up the kettle, poured filtered water into it and set her mug next to it. Then she nestled the mesh strainer over it. Turning to the box, she pried it open and ran her fingers along the airtight metal boxes, before selecting a few, popping them open, and dropping pinches of tea leaves into the sieve.

Somber thoughts swirled around Lena while she waited for the water to boil. Was it really too much for the universe to let her be loved—no, cherished—no, appreciated? Was there something innate in her that made it impossible for others to love her or was it a byproduct of circumstance? A children’s book on adoption her parents had bought but never bothered to read to her or talk to her about told her that she was doubly-loved because her biological parents had loved her enough to let her go and her adopted parents loved her because she was their child. The idea tasted sour; what she’d had with her family had never been love, really. Her parents had provided her with unlimited opportunities but money and status could not make up for the very conditional love she’d been teased with all her life.

The kettle beeped. Lena poured hot water on the leaves and bent down to watch the tea.

Her dad had loved her, she was certain. But his love was dangerous and he’d been gone for years. His loyalties were torn and his moods unpredictable; getting close meant getting hurt. On her better days, Lena thought that Lionel had loved her as best he could. On her worst, he’d loved her at the expense of her brother’s wellbeing. He celebrated her accomplishments only when he could use them to point out Lex’s failures. As an adult, she’d realized that being loved against someone else didn’t mean she was truly loved at all. And now Lena was torn between forgiving her father and letting his memories, however tainted, be imbued with fondness while she tried and failed to forget how every kind word towards her was a backhanded insult for Lex.

And Lex, god. Lena tried to distract herself from the burning in her eyes as she pried the sieve off her tea and dumped the leaves. She drizzled honey into her cup and watched it settle at the bottom.

Their dad’s unwillingness to ever let Lex be good enough no matter how hard he worked had broken him. Their dad’s abuse and their mom’s spoon-fed hatred had twisted Lex from her kind and brilliant brother into someone unrecognizable. The man who’d tried to kill her more than once when she “betrayed” him by taking over his company and working to reverse their family’s legacy into something good wasn’t her brother. Except that he was. But, no, he wasn’t: the Lex she’d loved was long gone.

He wouldn’t even look at her the last time she’d seen him. Surrounded by guards and fluorescent lights, his eyes had burned a hole into the wall behind her. She stirred her tea and watched the whirlpool. She couldn’t remember what she’d said to Lex that day, what she’d begged, but the memories of playing chase and eavesdropping on parties and reading together were gone like the honey in her tea.

She hadn’t even _wanted_ to visit him. She’d said her goodbyes when he stopped all of LuthorCorp’s philanthropy projects to focus on his vendetta against Superman. She’d said them again when he told her she was misguided and soft after she begged him to stop after a trap he’d set for Superman had killed hundreds of innocent people. She’d said them again during all the trails, and _again_ for each life sentence. That fifteen-minute visit, at her mom’s behest and not even a year ago, had only picked at the wounds she was trying to heal.

Lena sipped her tea and grimaced. She’d let it steep too long and the honey did little to mask its bitterness.

Her mom had never loved her, had never possessed the capacity to love anything but Lex and power. Lena knew her adoption was Lionel’s idea, an apology for his lecherous behavior and an appeal to Lillian’s vanity. A sweet little girl to dress up, to brighten their lives—but her mom had wanted no part in that, really. To Lillian, Lena only existed to boost Lex’s confidence. It was Lillian who taught Lex to hate weakness and resent people better than him in order to externalize the loathing Lionel had imbued in his son. The closest to praise Lena could remember receiving from her mom was when she’d acknowledge her accomplishments just to put them down in order to uplift Lex when he was struggling.

Lena knew her mom was lying when she said she loved her. She knew those terse hugs and stilted “I love you”s meant nothing because she knew her mom didn’t—or couldn’t—love her. So why did she ache to hear her say it just one more time? Why did she feel almost loved when her mom needed her help last week? Why did being handed the key to the rocket temporarily assuage the guilt gnawing at her stomach for tricking her mother and Supergirl and calling the police? Lena’s response to the fiasco had ruined anything between them and now her mom was gone, too, just like Lex. Lena supposed she had done the right thing, but the emptiness at betraying her _mom_ didn’t make it worthwhile now that she was truly alone.

Lena squeezed her eyes tight and held her breath, lest she get salt in her tea.

Her mom would never love her no matter how hard she tried. She wouldn’t have been loved even if she’d gone through with Lillian’s plan. The fleeting hope that she would, though? That she might actually love her, or at least appreciate her, for almost a whole evening? That what she craved was tangible at the expense of hundreds of innocent lives? Lena could hardly live with herself when she admitted to such weakness. They weren’t _human_ lives, but they were still people who didn’t deserve to die.

Tea in hand, she walked to stand behind her desk. She took a large sip—Luthors didn’t _gulp_ —and coughed. She took another. She was _done_ with this. She’d been done for years, done hoping, done opening herself up to being hurt, done sacrificing her morals for fleeting moments of acceptance. It hadn’t gotten easier, over the years. She was rigid standing in her empty office waiting for another grueling day with no tangible benefit. The lives she’d saved in a single brave moment didn’t make up for the lies that got her there or her refusal to let the moment connect her to something larger. Her ends didn’t justify her means, and now she stood alone as a traitor, an heir to a murderous legacy, and no one’s friend.

Lena took another sip of her horrendous tea just as the door slammed open. Kara burst in, grinning, all windswept and red-cheeked, balancing a food tray with one hand and an overflowing pot of magenta flowers in the other. Lena couldn’t stop her smile at the sight of her friend trying to set her things down without dropping them. Her resentment had dissipated with joy and the tension in her neck eased for the first time in days.

“Kara!” Lena laughed, standing and taking the flowerpot from her so she could set the tray down.

“Lena!” Kara beamed. She moved around the desk and held Lena at arms length. “I heard about what you did, how you saved everyone—” Kara stopped as Lena’s face darkened.

“And I just wanted to say,” she continued in a rush, holding Lena tighter, “ _thank you_. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

And then Lena was engulfed in a hug. Everything was warm and smelled like vanilla and all Lena could see was honey-colored hair. She stiffened and hovered her hands over Kara’s back, unsure of what to do. Kara just hugged her closer, rocking a little and whispering “I’m so proud of you” into Lena’s neck. Her eyelashes tickled. Lena let her hands settle, open-palmed, on Kara’s back. She let out a shuddery breath and gazed at the ceiling to stop herself from crying.

All too soon and not soon enough, Kara let go and pulled back. She stayed close, then, still grinning down at Lena. Lena smiled back, basking in her glow.

“Oh!” Kara drew the flowerpot close to her chest. “I brought you these, they’re bougainvilleas, they, um, they grow into bushes.” She offered the flowerpot to Lena.

“Thank you, Kara.” Lena took the pot and absentmindedly rubbed one of the thin petals between her fingers. It rolled like tissue paper. “They’re lovely.”

“You had plumerias before,” Kara explained. “They’re tropical, so I figured that maybe you like things from warm places. Bougainvillea are tropical too.”

Lena nodded and set the flowers down on her desk. She glanced towards her balcony. “Isn’t it a bit cold for them, here?”

Kara’s eyebrows knit. “Yeah, but you’ll keep them inside, right?”

Lena laughed. “Of course.”

Kara looked at the bougainvillea with concern for another moment, before her face cleared and she grinned at Lena again.

“I brought you coffee, too.” She gestured to the tray on Lena’s desk. “And then Jess said I could bring you breakfast since I was already here.”

“Oh, fabulous,” Lena breathed. Kara offered her one of the cups, which she took gratefully. “Do you want to stay?” She gestured towards her couch. Kara hummed and picked up the tray while Lena followed her.

They settled into the couch: Lena with one leg tucked underneath her, nursing her coffee and watching Kara while she stared longingly at her croissant.

“You can have that, if you want.”

“Oh! No, no I couldn’t, I already ate and that’s your breakfast and Jess told me that you haven’t been—nothing! Jess told me nothing.”

Lena raised one eyebrow, incredulous. “Fine, then. Share it with me?”

Kara laughed and waved her hand in front of her face. “If you insist.”

“I do,” Lena grinned. “Tell me to what do I owe this honor. I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

Kara looked aghast and Lena’s stomach dropped. _Fuck._ She was here, wasn’t she? Why did she guilt her when she showed up? “Sorry…”

“No! No, Lena, no.” The hand was back, gesturing at nothing. “You’re right, I should have been here sooner, or at least called to check in on you.”

“You didn’t need to.” Lena’s voice wavered and she cursed herself for sounding so desperate.

“I should have,” Kara said, putting her hand on Lena’s thigh and squeezing. “You did something incredibly brave and scary and as your friend I should have supported you better.”

Lena stiffened and frowned. “I don’t think the world thinks that what I did was brave.”

“Well that’s because they don’t know _you_ ,” Kara stressed.

“Who am I, then?”

Kara’s grin was lopsided. “You’re just a girl who’s trying to make a name for herself outside of her family,” she said, “by taking over your family’s company to make it a force of good in the world.”

“Yes, well.” Lena cleared her throat and tucked her other leg underneath her, away from Kara’s too-warm hand. “That’s a nice soundbite, and there’s truth behind it. But there’s more to the story.”

“Yeah?” Kara bounced forward and twitched her fingers hopefully over a small bunch of grapes on Lena’s plate. Lena inclined her head and Kara happily plucked one off the bunch. “Those sounded like pretty legitimate reasons to me.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, they are. But the other reasons are selfish. Do you know what the Luthor name stood for when I was growing up?”

Kara shook her head.

“Generosity.” Lena chuckled. “The Luthors adopted me, they started schools, they opened hospitals and they funded research into all sorts of technology that was supposed to make the world a better place.”

“Oh, wow,” Kara said through a mouthful of grapes.

“Yeah,” Lena sighed. “The skeletons in our closets are enormous, but at least, on the outside, I could walk into a room and feel like I was part of something that did net good in the world. Regardless of what happened behind closed doors, our legacy was improving lives.”

Lena glanced at Kara, who was twisting her hands together and looking back at Lena with her eyebrows raised. She steeled herself and continued.

“As I got older, I started sitting in on board meetings. Luthor Corp was growing under my brother’s tutelage and I wanted to capitalize upon that success to have some say in the company’s direction so that I could launch projects I care about. So once I graduated, I started organizing charities of my own. I helped start a STEAM initiative in low-income school districts across the country, a health and education project in seven West African nations, a biome-conservation model that’s been used in environmental protection projects around the world, an affordable alternative communication app for smart technology—we even started an endangered language revitalization program.”  

“Oh, wow,” Kara breathed. She cocked her head to the side and scooted closer to Lena. “I had no idea.”

Lena’s laugh was jaded and sharp. “Yeah, well. I didn’t like to flaunt my involvement, to take attention away from the projects themselves, lest I seemed like I was pretending to care in order to further my own ambitions. And when Lex… I had to move my projects to other companies in order to protect them from his madness. But _I_ couldn’t do that: I’m still his sister. And that’s all anyone will see for a very long time. So when the opportunity presented itself to take initiative and save the company, I _had_ to. To clear our name and to allow the projects I love to continue.”

“Gosh, Lena.” Kara shook her head. “That doesn’t sound selfish at all.”

Lena raised an eyebrow. “Not doing absolutely _everything_ I can to make the world a better place with what I have been given by being a Luthor is being selfish.”

“But…” Kara’s forehead wrinkled. “How can you live like that? When is it enough? You don’t owe the world anything for being a Luthor.”

“You sound like my therapist, Kara,” Lena teased. “It’ll never be enough, but I don’t know how to live with myself if I don’t try.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Kara said, incensed. “It’s not your fault that Lex went crazy and hurt all those people!”

Lena scowled. “Actually, it is. I had stocks invested in Luthor Corp. Profits from the company paid for my education. I even designed some of the technology Lex later used to kill people. I need to clear my conscience, Kara.”

“Is that why you rendered the isotope inert?”

Lena’s stomach lurched with the reminder. “Don’t prescribe a noble intent on what was ultimately a business decision, Kara. I didn’t want L-Corp to be implicated in another plot to slaughter innocents.”

“What was there to connect L-Corp to Cadmus?” Kara twisted her mouth while she thought. “If it had gone according to plan, all the aliens on Earth would have died and no one would know why.”

Lena scowled. “You don’t think my mom would have stood up after the fall and declared herself Earth’s new savior? With aliens like Supergirl and Superman gone, people like my mom and brother could capitalize upon the power vacuum. Cadmus operated through a L-Corp subsidiary. We refined the virus. It wouldn’t take long for anyone to connect the dots; pro-alien groups would demonize me and anti-alien organizations would proclaim me their hero.”

Kara blanched at the mention of Superman and Supergirl. She stared at Lena for a moment, wide-eyed. “But… isn’t that what you want?”

Lena tried to laugh but it sounded like a cough. “What? No, definitely not. I’m no one’s sinner nor their saint. I don’t want to be associated with anyone’s agenda beyond helping make the world a better place. I can’t determine what that looks like, just develop practical solutions to the concrete problems that make themselves known.”

“Is that why you haven’t said anything definitive?” Kara asked. “Everyone’s been trying to get a statement from you. I—I’ve been, um, following the news and no one’s been able to pinpoint what’s going on. Is that part of your plan?”

“None of this is part of my plan, Kara.” Lena sighed. “All of these alien rights groups are pressuring us, trying to claim me as some sort of pro-alien hero, and I’m not comfortable with that. My board is furious and investors are pulling out. Our stock dropped by nearly five points and I don’t want to think about what would happen if I made this into a statement.”

“Why not? You did a very brave thing by interfering with something that would have affected every alien but none of the humans in National City.” Kara rubbed her fingers together.

“It’s just such a big commitment,” Lena breathed, placing her hand over Kara’s. “I mean it’s all so sudden. Aliens are just coming out of the woodwork, demanding rights, and I’m not sure I’m ready to be a spokesperson—I’m not some person they really want to champion.”

“What do you mean? You’re smart and powerful and your support could make a difference—oooh. You—you don’t think aliens deserve the same rights humans do?” Kara began bouncing her leg under Lena’s hand.

Lena bit her lip. “Well, you must remember how it was before, Kara. When we were alone. When everyone was human and aliens were mythology. Their existence makes everything different, it turns the world as we knew it on its head. My family has… _had_ its biases, and some things are hard to shake.”

Kara pulled back and Lena closed her palm on empty air.

“You must feel similarly, Kara,” she stressed. “You said it yourself, that there are some bad aliens. I don’t think every alien deserves immediate amnesty. We don’t even grant that right to most human refugees and undocumented immigrants. And, socially, I don’t know how I feel about aliens being open about their identities. The other day I saw some hulking figure with red _scales_ , Kara. In broad daylight! At the end of the day, they’re galactic strangers demanding places in society where they don’t fit and rights in societies that already struggle to take care of our own vulnerable, _human_ populations.”

Kara drew her eyebrows together. When she spoke, her voice was tight. “I… I’d really better get going, Lena. You have important work to do. Thank you for sharing your breakfast with me.”

Dread twisted around Lena’s stomach. “Please don’t think I’m a horrible person for being cautious, Kara. For needing time to develop my opinions.”

“No, of course,” Kara frowned, getting up. “I th-think you’re really brave for being… open to change. To give people a chance to prove themselves.”

Lena brightened. “Exactly. I knew you’d understand, that you’d feel similarly.”

Kara grimaced. “I, I really need to, um—”

“All right,” Lena sighed, pushing herself up off the couch. “Do you want to know why I really did it? Why I stopped my mom?”

Kara cocked her head to the side. “No, why?”

“It was because of your friend Supergirl, actually,” Lena jutted her chin out, defiant in admitting her motives out loud. “She might not trust me, might not see me as more than a Luthor, and one day she’s going to come after me like Superman came after Lex, but she does _so much good_ , Kara. She’s our city’s hero. She gives everyone hope. And I don’t want to live in a world where she doesn’t exist.”

Kara sat back down. “That’s…” she choked out. “That’s really beautiful, Lena.”

Lena brushed her off. “She’s everyone’s inspiration. I’m not special.”

Kara’s eyes shone. “I think you are.”

Lena was split between feeling flattered and uncomfortable by Kara’s faith in her. She fidgeted, twisting her hands and pressing them together. Her phone buzzed from its spot on the table. She picked it up and silenced it, then sighed. The world made her so weary. “I’ll be so glad when this is over and I can go back to my life. I appreciate that you took the time to stop by.”

Kara nodded and slung her bag over her chest. She looked up at Lena and smiled, her eyes still soft. “Thank you for taking the time to see me this morning.”

“It was my pleasure,” Lena smiled back and walked her to the door. “You’re the first friendly face I’ve seen in a week. Please don’t be a stranger. I could really use a friend right now.” Her neediness pulled at her heart; allowing someone the power to reject her made her loathe her temporary vulnerability.

“Of course, Lena,” Kara stopped by the door before wrapping Lena in a one-armed hug.

Lena tried, and failed, not to stiffen with the contact. Her training took over; she brushed her lips against Kara’s check in a polite reflex, made almost automatic by etiquette lessons and a year spent doing business with Mercosur. When she pulled back, Kara’s cheeks were tinged pink. Lena walked back to her desk, her heels snapping against the floor. After a moment of hesitation, she heard Kara reach for the doorknob.

“Kara,” Lena called after her, turning around. “I trust you’ll do me justice, okay? I’m sure you’re planning to write about what we discussed this morning. You can pretend we had a real interview and that I gave you an exclusive.”

Kara turned in the doorway. “I wouldn’t write about anything I didn’t get consent for. I’m all about consent!”

Lena chuckled. “You have such uptight morals for a journalist, you know.”

Kara ducked her head and fumbled her way out the door. Lena shivered a little and turned back to her desk. The prospect of meetings and dealings with angry board members didn’t seem so daunting now.

\-----

Kara’s phone buzzed as she walked out of the L-Corp building. A quick glance told her it was Alex, so she paused and swiped her screen to answer it. “Hello?”

“Supergirl,” her sister’s voice was curt. “Can you come in now? We were sent something troubling and Director Henshaw wants you to take a look at it.”

“On it!” Kara hung up and ducked into an alleyway. After checking that it was empty, she stripped off her outer layers and clipped on her cape. With a small jump, she was airborne.

She sped through the city, twisting around high rises and ducking under bridges. All too soon, she was pulling up at the DEO Headquarters. Flying was exhilarating; she’d missed out on it for years in an attempt to be normal—to be human—and since embracing her powers she’d found it difficult to fit in flying just for fun and not as a quick way of getting somewhere.

Kara stuck her hands on her hips once she crossed the DEO threshold, a reflex she had adopted because it made her feel more confident. Alex stood there, hands also on her hips, waiting. Her eyes sparked when she saw Kara, but the dark shadows under them betrayed the stress she was under.

“Supergirl.” She nodded once and turned to strut down the hall. Kara trotted behind her.

“What we’re going to show you is graphic,” Alex explained over her shoulder. “Maggie sent me the pictures once the Science Division had exhausted its own resources.”

J’onn and Winn were bent over a computer in the briefing room, intent on the screen. At the sound of their footsteps, both men leaned back so Kara could step forward. Once she focused on the contents of the screen, she fell back and into Alex’s waiting arms.

She felt _sick,_ like her stomach was rolling over and threatening to pull her with it. Images of dead animals, all wrapped in plastic with bizarre blue rashes and tumors, missing clumps of hair and cataract-clouded eyes flashed behind her eyelids. She couldn’t even tell what species some of them were because they were so disfigured.

Alex passed her hand over Kara’s back. After a moment, she nudged her into standing straight again.

“W-what is this?” Kara asked, eyes flickering between Winn and J’onn. Their faces were grim. She steeled herself against the images and forced herself to look at them again.

J’onn sighed and it sounded like gravel in his chest. “About a year ago, these bodies started turning up. All found abandoned in different places on roads leaving the city, all wrapped like this to prevent scavengers from accessing the bodies.”

Kara furrowed her brows. She stood rigid, hands back on her hips to prevent herself from breaking. She studied at the photos, trying to decipher the nature of the strange disease, but when Winn zoomed in on a particularly mangled goat she had to look away again.

“We think they fell off of a loading van that was seen delivering large cargo to a medical waste disposal plant from a genetics lab in the city,” Alex said. She rubbed the heel of her palm against Kara’s back. She couldn’t ease out any of the tension there, but her touch was comforting nonetheless. “NCPD searched multiple vans but nothing ever turned up—they were always caught bringing innocuous waste to the facilities.”

"We cannot find much information on the laboratory in question,” J’onn added. “Much of their work is classified and because nothing incriminating was found in the vans no warrant was ever granted to further research the organization.”

"This is horrible,” Kara gasped. “It’s sick. Who _does_ this?”

“It gets worse,” Winn sighed. Kara’s heart dropped. “It started small, see? Guinea pigs and rats, then ferrets. Eight months ago and they’d moved on to pigs and sheep. Then capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees started showing up. But now…”

He flipped through the photos rapidly, never letting an image settle for very long before opening up a new collection of photos. There were more bodies, all with blue rashes and patchy skin, but this time they were humanoid: a green woman with sparse scales; a muscular, orange man with multiple sets of cloudy eyes; a pair of violet and four-armed people with irregular blue tumors marring their thin, rubbery skin. _Aliens._

“They started showing up two months ago,” Winn continued, “all with the same disfigurements.”

“Oh, Rao,” Kara whispered through terse lips. She bent her head and closed her eyes, though their blank, pupil-less eyes still haunted her. Her voice was tight with grief. “Grant them speedy peace and ease their passage for they have suffered. May their memories bring joy to all who miss them.”

J’onn’s hand settled heavy on her shoulder. “This could be very serious, Supergirl. We need you to fly by and gather whatever intelligence you can that might give us a clue of what this is and how we can stop it.”

“But be careful, please.” Alex tilted Kara’s face so she could look into her eyes. “We don’t know what we’re up against and this could be really dangerous.”

Alex’s pupils were small and her eyes flickered around Kara’s face. Though her expression was impassive, her chin quivered. A spark of fear ran down Kara’s back: Alex was more scared than disgusted, which meant the situation was bad _and_ dangerous.

“What am I looking for?” Kara asked, her voice booming in an attempt to sound confident in order to alleviate some of her sister’s anxiety.

“We are in the dark about two things right now.” Now J’onn’s eyes were searching Kara’s. “We do not know who or what is funding these experiments and we also do not know for what purpose these experiments are being conducted.”

“It’s a super-plague,” Winn interjected. “Obviously. Like, why else would you kidnap aliens and kill them with your evil virus? I bet Cadmus is behind it—or even L-Corp. This is their long-term backup plan just in case Lillian Luthor’s plan failed.”

Kara frowned at the mention of L-Corp. Lena was right: all people could see was her relationship to Lex, even though she’d saved the city and was trying _so hard_ to do good in the world. She wouldn’t be involved in a plan like this.

“That’s conjecture,” J’onn sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We do not know for certain and cannot move forward unless we know what we are up against.”

“I bet they’re trying to create an epidemic,” Winn said. “It just makes sense! Why not capitalize upon rising xenophobia by infecting National City’s alien population with an engineered super-bug!”

Alex grabbed Kara’s wrist. “If that’s true,” she said, “you need to be _really_ careful, Kara.”

Kara nodded. “I will.”

J’onn looked up from the computer to look at Kara again. “Good luck, Supergirl.”

Kara nodded again and spun around to zoom out of the building. Out into the crisp, open air again, but weighed down by images she couldn’t shake.

\-----

The laboratory Winn sent Kara to was in a nondescript, square office building in a warehouse district that also had a rock climbing gym, a discount clothing store, a furniture manufacturer and two auto body shops. The only indication that the building was a laboratory was a faded sign over the front door with the words “Donovan & Thompkins Center for Genetic Research” printed across it.

Kara sped around the building. It looked like a normal office building, with no hidden rooms or lead enclosures. She flew above the building until she was hovering far enough above it that she could look down and see it all.

"Supergirl?” Alex’s voice rang in her ears. “What do you see?”

"Preliminary sweep revealed nothing out of the ordinary,” Kara said, trying to sound like a real agent would.

"Can you scan it floor-by-floor?”

Kara nodded and then realized Alex couldn’t see her. “Sure. Yes.”

She shook her head to clear it and tried to limit her x-ray vision to only peer through the topmost floor. “I see… mostly offices. Most of the people are sitting at circular tables—oh, I guess it’s lunchtime.” Her stomach rumbled in agreement.

“And the next?”

 Kara squinted. The next floor came into focus, but it was hard to filter through the first one.

“It looks like classrooms… lots of equipment. In the back of the building there are lines of cages. Oh, Rao, that’s where they keep the animals.”

Little white heartbeats were clustered in the cages. Some were rapid and some were sluggish. Kara couldn’t tell whether it was due to stress or variations in different species.

“Are any of them alien?” J’onn’s voice came over the line.

“No, I don’t think so.” Kara tilted her head to clear her field of vision, but when that didn’t work she just dipped lower and looked at the cages from the side of the building.

“Are you sure? Maybe some of the aliens are small,” Winn asked, followed by a dull thud and an _ow_ and an _ask next time._

“As far as I can tell, there are no aliens here,” Kara said, floating so that she was diagonal from the building. The animals all looked terrestrial, with four limbs and one heart. The animals ranged in size from small to medium. There were food bins, linens and examining tables in the room as well. Kara flew above the building again to look down on the first floor, but she couldn’t make out anything discernable through the noise the top floors made. She flew down and landed behind some bushes.

Once on the ground, she peered through the wall. “The first floor has a reception area,” she said, scanning. “And more classrooms. And what looks like warehouse or storeroom. There are lots of boxes in there.”

“Where does that leave the aliens?” Alex asked. “You said there weren’t any there, right Supergirl?”

"As far as I can tell, yeah. Just animals. But all of them are little… Winn mentioned things like chimpanzees, and nothing seems bigger than a dog.”

“How far down can you see?” J’onn asked. Kara squinted. Underneath the first floor there was… nothing.

“The first floor is lead!” She said, kicking off and flying higher to look out over everything. She zoomed around, looking for a clue. “There must be a secret basement under there! That’s where they’re keeping everyone!”

“Good job, Supergirl,” Alex said. Kara heard a few murmurs, and then: “It’s likely that there will be some opening—can you try to look for an entrance of any kind? Maybe towards the back?”

Kara swept the building again, staring carefully at the floor. There! “There’s a square with a handle on the floor of the storeroom,” she said, “and I think it’s an entrance.”

“We’re sending a tactical team out there,” J’onn said. “Stay there and continue gathering information until backup arrives. We will stake the place out until we have definitive proof there are aliens in the building.”

“Try to listen in to any important conversations,” Winn said. “Names would be helpful.”

"Got it!” Kara landed on the roof of a nearby warehouse so that she could get a better view.

\-----

Surveillance was _boring._ Kara had been watching the building for nearly two hours and she was ready to burst. Listening to dozens of conversations and using her x-ray vision for so long was exhausting too.

“Focus, focus,” she whispered, trying to pick through the noise in order to pinpoint on any interesting conversation. It all seemed so _normal_. Except for the lead-lined floor. Kara frowned and tried to listen harder, even though it hurt her head. _Rao._ Humans were so _noisy._ Eventually, one voice cut through the cacophony of conversations about birthday parties, drinks after work and football.

“Dr. Pascal.” The voice was high and staccato. “What are the results of the latest test?”

There was a weighty sigh, followed by, “The virus was successfully transmitted through air, but symptoms are showing up much sooner than anticipated.” This speaker’s voice was deeper than the other and it lisped slightly.

“How much sooner?”

“Soon enough that Mr. Hernandez will _not_ be happy.”

“Has the field team contacted you about a new shipment? Maybe the differences in physiology between species lead to an exogenous and increasingly rapid development of symptoms. The more test subjects we have, the more data we can gather.”

Kara scooted forward, scanning the building for the figures speaking.

“I really wish we knew more of what we were dealing with,” the deeper voice said. “How can we design a virus and a vaccine when we don’t understand how our test subjects’ bodies work?”

“There’s no time,” the high voice murmured. “Ten years of development, five years of staring at cultures while they grew, over a year of testing. We’re getting close, I can feel it. Mr. Hernandez wants Project Virela to enter the next phase within the next year.”

“Camille! Jeff!” A cheerier voice said. “Come, sign Jim’s birthday card.”

After that, their voices faded into the rest of the white noise of the building. But at least, finally, she’d been able to learn something useful.

“Winn?” Kara said into her earpiece. “I just overheard a conversation that I think is important…”

\-----

“Okay, so, here’s what we know,” Winn said, tapping his tablet to project the screen onto a wall panel. Kara had flown into the DEO Headquarters just minutes before. “With the intel Kara gathered and some deep digging, I present to you: Dr. Camille Ido and Dr. Jeffery Pascal. Scientists hired by Donovan and Thompkins Labs with specializations in immunology and genetic engineering.”

A few pictures appeared on the screen: a slender woman with dark hair and a man with blonde curls and an underbite.

“They’re also National City Soccer fans,” Winn said, flicking more pictures onto the screen, “as evidenced by these photos I pulled off of Camille’s Instagram.”

J’onn sighed and Alex rolled her eyes.

“Okay, fine, not as interesting.” Winn shrugged. “But you have to admit the face paint is a bit much.”

“What else is there?” J’onn asked, his voice tight with impatience.

“Not much—once we raid the place I’ll be able to access their computers. But they’re both part of the same ‘religious organization,’ led by one Mr. Desi Hernandez.’” Winn curled his fingers for emphasis. “It’s a doomsday cult called Shyant. Typical millenialist stuff: the end is neigh, humanity is a scourge upon the Earth, you know the deal.”

“Isn’t it weird to have two scientists involved in a doomsday cult?” Alex wondered, frowning at the screen.

“Not really, no. Their doctrine espouses a cleansing... a Renovation, they call it, that will bring a disease that wipes out most life on Earth. And it looks like Drs. Pascal and Ido are designing the superbug in question.”

“It looks like you were right, Winn,” Kara sighed. “It is a plague.”

“But wait,” Alex interrupted. “If they are trying to wipe out humanity, why are they experimenting on aliens?”

“I think I might have an idea,” J’onn said. “It appears they were using aliens as convenient test subjects in order to continue to test the effectiveness of the disease.”

Kara shuddered.

“After all,” J’onn said with a wry smile. “It’s not like they can test this sort of thing on humans.”

Kara’s heart burned. Innocent people— _her_ people, she supposed, though the idea felt strange—were being experimented on because they had no legal protections or rights as citizens. The president’s amnesty act did little to protect them.

“Actually, it’s interesting that you mention the aliens,” Winn said, navigating to another page on his tablet. The words _Alien Menace_ appeared at the top of the screen. “Shyant was way into aliens before anyone else even admitted they were here—like years before. They’ve been talking about how it’s a sign of the great renovation for ages.”

A headline caught Kara’s eye.

“Another day, another alien,” she read softly. “With the arrival of so-called Supergirl, the Earth has received another false prophet. It is now common knowledge that she is Superman’s cousin, which indicates for the first time that the arrival of aliens to our planet is not a chance occurrence, but rather a strategic plan of infestation. We are now under increased threat of alien invasion, as the worst of humanity attracts the worst of other worlds. The arrival of more alien species on Earth is a sign of the upcoming Renovation, as it is the only way to ensure our planet is humans-only again.”

Kara shivered at a sudden chill. She wrapped her cape around herself. She’d spent years as something from science fiction, utterly alone because she wasn’t supposed to exist on Earth. She almost preferred obscurity because it shielded her from the worst of anti-alien rhetoric. Now that aliens were in the public eye she had to face all sorts of awful and dehumanizing opinions head-on. They made her feel small.

“We’ll get them,” Alex said, sensing Kara’s sadness. “We’re staking out the lab right now and once it’s dark we’ll be shutting them down.”

Kara nodded, too miserable to say anything.

“Thank you for all your work today, Supergirl,” J’onn said, turning to look at her. “You’ve helped us a great deal. By shutting them down now, you’re preventing the tragic loss of life for millions of people, both human and alien alike.”

“This group is fringe anyway,” Winn added. “Most people aren’t like this.”

“You can go now,” J’onn said, softer this time. “We will let you know what we find out during the raid.”

\-----

Kara entered the CatCo building like a whirlwind. She’d missed most of the day, and even with her super speed she couldn’t make up for hours of missed assignments. She was a few minutes late for a meeting, so everyone turned to glare at her when she burst through James’s glass doors. Snapper and the other reporters were gathered around James’s desk.

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Ponytail,” Snapper said, scowling. He went back to staring at his notepad. “Okay, go. Give me ideas.”

James cleared his throat and Snapper rolled his eyes in response.

“Great job on the latest issue, everyone,” James clapped his hands together, ignoring Snapper. “Our daily reader numbers are way up. Marcia, great job on your coverage of the chemical leak. Tierry, I liked the direction you took with your interview of the air traffic controller after that plane spun out of control. Does anyone have any leads for the next issue?”

Kara twisted her mouth to the side and tried to think of an event, but all that came to mind was the horrible experiment.

“Well,” said a crisply dressed woman who covered local politics. “I’ve heard that there’s going to be an anti-alien demonstration outside of the courthouse tomorrow.”

“Good, cover that, see if you can contact the organizers to get quotes beforehand,” Snapper said. “Next.”

James was looking at Kara expectantly, tilting his head in encouragement. Kara shook her head and glared at him. She’d been so busy as Supergirl that she couldn’t think of anything relevant to suggest. Ugh! She just wanted to do a good job by proving her worth as a reporter and making Cat proud.

“Our sports section could use some attention,” a young man in a baseball cap said. “There’s an NC Hoops game on Friday.”

“If nothing better comes up, write that,” Snapper said without looking up.

Kara stared at the ceiling while she tried to conjure a newsworthy, non-alien-related story. A few more people had suggestions, which Snapper begrudgingly allowed or impatiently turned down.

After a few more ideas that were clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel, Snapper cleared his throat. “Well, if none of you have anything worthwhile to offer—”

“There’s a secret lab experimenting on aliens!” Kara blurted out. She clapped her hand over her mouth. _Shit_. She was so desperate she couldn’t think.

“Go on,” Snapper looked up for the first time since the meeting began, his eyebrow raised. “This sounds interesting if you can substantiate it.”

“My sister’s girlfriend works for the Science Division,” Kara lied, “and she told me that dead aliens with the same symptoms have been showing up. They think it’s connected to a doomsday group that’s creating a disease.”

Kara’s stomach twisted like there was lead in it. She’d been lying since she arrived on Earth, but it had been getting easier in the past few months. Lies slipped out so quickly now that Kara felt sick and guilty. This information was probably classified and it wasn’t hers to tell.

Everyone was murmuring and Snapper was staring at her. “Sounds good, Ponytail. Dig more, bring me a fully developed pitch with sources by tomorrow and we’ll talk about how to run it.”

Kara stomped her foot gently against the floor as everyone started filing out, taking care not to break it. James moved around his desk with a concerned look on his face. Kara forced a smile at him and moved out of the room, feeling the wall behind her as she made her way out.

“Better get working on that pitch!” She shrugged, turning the corner and letting her face fall. Oh, Rao. Why had she said anything?

Kara spent the rest of the day scouring the Internet for a better story to suggest to Snapper, trying not to think about pupil-less eyes and blue rashes. She began packing her stuff up a little before five. Alex called shortly after.

“Hey,” Kara said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “What’s up?”

“We found out who’s funding the research, Kara,” Alex’s voice was glum. “You’re not going to like it.”

With a sinking heart, Kara asked: “What is it?”

“It’s L-Corp—”

“It was Lex, then! He’s not involved anymore,” Kara protested.

“That’s what we thought, but we just checked—it’s still part of their R&D budget. Lena signed off on a request for more money last week.”

“No!” Kara gnashed her teeth together. She ducked behind a building and changed into her Supergirl outfit. “I’m going to talk to her.”

Alex said something else, but Kara was too angry to pay attention. This couldn’t be Lena’s doing, it _couldn’t_. Not when they’d had breakfast that morning, not when Lena promised she was working on changing, not when Lena was distraught after everything that had happened with her mom. She couldn’t be lying when she said she didn’t want to be involved in the death of innocents. Could she?

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me! I'm burnslikeabluedream on tumblr. If you have a moment to leave a review, I'd appreciate it; the more interest (and constructive criticism) I receive the more encouraged I am to keep writing.


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